By Kim Yoo-chul, Jhoo Dong-chan
South Korea decided to renew a military intelligence-sharing pact with Japan, Japanese media reports said, Friday afternoon.
According to NHK in Japan, South Korea notified Japan of its decision to renew the General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA). NHK didn't elaborate.
First and second deputies of the presidential National Security Office Kim You-geun and Kim Hyun-chong are expected to announce Seoul's final decision regarding GSOMIA around 6 p.m. at the earliest, according to officials familiar with the issue. The foreign ministry is set to hold a briefing session right after the Cheong Wa Dae announcement.
Forecasts earlier in the day were that Seoul will officially allow the General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA) to expire, with President Moon Jae-in and top South Korean government officials repeatedly reaffirming Seoul's stance not to reverse course unless Japan cancels its July move to restrict exports to South Korea.
GSOMIA is aimed at countering North Korean nuclear and missile threats. It had been renewed automatically annually since it was singed on Nov. 23, 2016, and was due to be extended unless one of the countries decided to drop it 90 days prior to its extension deadline, said Cheong Wa Dae officials.
Japan was considering withdrawing its July decision to remove South Korea from its list of most trusted trading partners citing security reasons. At the time of the announcement, Japan claimed its decision was due to worries that core industrial materials exported to South Korea were used by North Korea for development of its missile technologies.
But more precisely, South Korea rebuffed the Japanese decision as being mostly due to its resistance not to accept last year's South Korean court rulings ordering Japanese companies to compensate surviving South Korean victims of wartime forced labor. Japan said all outstanding issues relating to its wrongdoings during the 1910-45 occupation of the Korean Peninsula were settled via a 1965 normalization treaty.
South Korea maintains the treaty didn't cover individuals' claims for compensation. As the dispute headed south, Washington urged Seoul to renew the pact as GSOMIA is more about trilateral security cooperation between Seoul, Tokyo and Washington and a linchpin in pursuing the U.S. Indo-Pacific Strategy.
President Moon Jae-in sent Prime Minister Lee Nak-yon as a special envoy to Tokyo on the occasion of the coronation of Japanese Emperor Naruhito. PM Lee delivered Moon's handwritten message that included the South Korean leader's hope to resolve the issue via open dialogue. A few days later, Moon held a brief chat with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in Thailand and they agreed to address the GSOMIA issue via diplomacy.
But no progress been seen, with Seoul and Tokyo reiterating each other's positions on the military agreement. Japan was asking South Korea to "do something" about the court rulings. President Moon said his administration can't accept the request and stressed the GSOMIA issue is a matter of "sovereignty and principle."
U.S. government officials including U.S. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper and Washington's top military generals recently met with South Korean Defense Minister Jeong Kyeong-soo and President Moon in Seoul, delivering Washington's hope for the renewal of the agreement. President Moon held out a slim hope of the pact being extended in a town hall meeting with local citizens over the weekend saying the two countries can still cooperate on security even if it does expire as scheduled.
As a backup move, National Assembly Speaker Moon Hee-sang floated the idea of inviting South Korean and Japanese companies to "voluntarily" compensate the surviving South Korean forced laborers with Seoul using its compensation fund. Japanese reports said Japanese PM Abe "literally supported" the speaker's idea.
On Friday norming, U.S. State Department spokesperson Morgan Ortagus said in a release that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo spoke with South Korean Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha over the phone and they pledged to coordinate closely and reaffirmed the importance of South Korea-Japan relations. Also, the U.S. Senate has unanimously passed a resolution reaffirming the importance of the endangered GSOMIA.
"The suspension of GSOMIA directly harms United States national security at a time when the government of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea is engaging in an increased level of provocations, including 12 tests of over 20 ballistic missiles this year, including new types of nuclear-capable land and sea-launched ballistic missiles," according to the resolution.
In a press conference at the National Assembly, Friday, Yoon Sang-hyun, chief of the Assembly's Diplomacy and Unification Committee, told reporters the government should extend the GSOMIA as the pact is "very necessary" in terms of power balance in Northeast Asia.
"If the GSOMIA expires, then that will hurt the trust between the allied countries. South Korea has to explore best possible ways on how to regain mutual trust. I delivered the necessity of a phone conversation between U.S. President Donald Trump and President Moon during my recent meeting with senior State Department officials as GSOMIA is crucial to maintain the trilateral security cooperation," Yoon said.
